MADRID (AP) — The Spanish government is dismissing the latest efforts by Catalan separatists to advance their independence bid, saying a planned Catalan government in exile would have no legal authority.

The government also says Jordi Sanchez, a prominent secessionist proposed as Catalonia's new president, can't take office because he's in jail in Madrid awaiting possible trial on charges of sedition and rebellion.

Government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said Friday of Sanchez possibly taking power that authorities "won't allow it."

Catalonia's fugitive ex-leader Carles Puigdemont said late Thursday in a video message from Brussels, where he fled to escape arrest in Spain, that separatists plan to create a kind of Catalan shadow government in exile, called the Council of the Republic, in Belgium.

Mendez de Vigo says it would have no power.